<?php
/**
 * <https://y.st./>
 * Copyright © 2019 Alex Yst <mailto:copyright@y.st>
 * 
 * This program is free software: you can redistribute it and/or modify
 * it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by
 * the Free Software Foundation, either version 3 of the License, or
 * (at your option) any later version.
 * 
 * This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
 * but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
 * MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the
 * GNU General Public License for more details.
 * 
 * You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License
 * along with this program. If not, see <https://www.gnu.org./licenses/>.
**/

$xhtml = array(
	'<{title}>' => 'A unified levelling system',
	'takedown' => '2017-11-01',
	'<{body}>' => <<<END
<img src="/img/CC_BY-SA_4.0/y.st./weblog/2019/07/14.jpg" alt="A tiny apple tree at my complex; it&apos;s bearing many fruit for a tree that small, but you can&apos;t really make them out in the photo because they&apos;re green like the leaves." class="framed-centred-image" width="800" height="480"/>
<section id="diet">
	<h2>Dietary intake</h2>
	<p>
		For breakfast, I had 61 grams of cereal and 110 grams of soy milk.
		For lunch, I had eight breadsticks from work, without the butter or cheese.
		For dinner, I had a veggie patty, pickle, tapioca cheese, ketchup, and mustard sandwich.
	</p>
</section>
<section id="drudgery">
	<h2>Drudgery</h2>
	<p>
		My discussion post for the day:
	</p>
	<blockquote>
		<p>
			Great job on your post.
			I thoroughly enjoyed reading your take on the concepts of lighting and mapping.
			In particular though, I found your owl image enlightening.
			In it, the owl looks like a flat drawing.
			It doesn&apos;t look three-dimensional at all.
			We can easily predict that behaviour based on the only light being ambient and not directional, leading to a lack of shadows and highlights.
			However, it&apos;s totally another thing to actually see the image created.
			It helps me understand how some seemingly-two-dimensional animations are produced that flow as well as if they were three-dimensional.
			They&apos;re probably actually produced in three dimensions, but lighting tricks flatten the result into two dimensions.
		</p>
	</blockquote>
</section>
<section id="Minetest">
	<h2>Minetest</h2>
	<img src="/img/CC_BY-SA_3.0/minetest.net./weblog/2019/07/14.png" alt="Five level-ups in a lava-filled cave" class="framed-centred-image" width="1024" height="600"/>
	<p>
		Due to an unexpected pine sapling level-up while I was trying to get to the spot I&apos;d left tin and coal ores together, I ended up failing to get the five level-ups on screen at once; the pine level-up message timed out before I could get the other four up.
		I anticipated something like that might happen though, so I&apos;d made a back-up copy of the world, and was able to try again.
		The second time, I got it.
		Sweet!
		Five level-ups in quick succession.
	</p>
	<p>
		With every system for making use of <code>minestats</code> that I&apos;ve come up with, I&apos;ve been trying to encourage well-rounded mining to make all stats matter, so you can&apos;t just focus on one stat and grind that one alone.
		Every time, I hit a bit of a wall, and I&apos;m not quite happy with the results.
		Usually, the problem is that I run out of ideas before I can find a purpose for all the stats or even all the uses for some stats I&apos;ve partly made use of.
		Building Up From Zero has been the exception, because while all stats are dealt with individually, they all do identical things.
		Which, of course, means I&apos;m not really happy with how it&apos;s coming out either, but it&apos;ll reach a point in which I can actually release it if I keep pressing forward.
		It&apos;s been my best attempt so far, though I started planning a project involving potions to work on in parallel, in which levels determine potion strengths, just because I&apos;m not really satisfied with Building Up From Zero.
		But now, I think I&apos;ve found a better solution.
	</p>
	<p>
		Basically, the whole reason different stats need to do different things is to reward players that don&apos;t focus on one thing and do only that.
		But now, levels are gained on an exponential curve.
		Grinding on a particular element becomes less and less effective the longer you do it.
		If the levels of all elements did the same thing and were added together, that level curve alone would be enough to reward players for stepping outside their usual routine.
		So that&apos;s what I&apos;ll do.
		It&apos;ll be easier to code.
		It&apos;ll change the game in less drastic ways.
		It&apos;ll be simpler to understand.
		It&apos;ll involve adding a few new level-handling features to <code>minestats</code> to make it be the engine that drives this concept, if I&apos;m to implement the feature efficiently.
		In my book, all of these things are desirable.
	</p>
	<p>
		To start simple, I think I&apos;ll just make levels increase the amount of storage space you have in a secondary inventory called the backpack.
		It&apos;s something that has such little effect on the game world that I can even add it to my simple world, yet I think it&apos;s also something players would actually want to work on improving their stats to make use of.
	</p>
</section>
<section id="mail">
	<h2>Mis-delivered mail</h2>
	<p>
		Somehow, the letter carrier mistakenly brought a letter meant for another complex to my complex a couple days ago.
		Because the apartment number of the intended recipient matched my own, it ended up delivered to me.
		I tried to take it where it belongs after work the other day, but I wasn&apos;t familiar with that part of town, and took it to the wrong place, and there was no apartment complex in sight.
		This time, I&apos;d looked up a map online, so I knew where to go, but is seems the complex is behind a gate that&apos;s locked at night, so I wasn&apos;t able to make the delivery.
		At least now, I know where to go, but I&apos;ll have to come back in daylight, which is exactly when I typoically don&apos;t have time to head out on errands.
		I&apos;ll just have to do it on one of my days off from work, though I&apos;d rather use that time to get done other things I need to do, such as study and read.
	</p>
</section>
END
);
